Thursday, October 17, 2013

It's time for another edition of everyone's favorite little red crimson book, "Quotations from Chairman Saban." This time Alabama's head football coach responds to questions as to whether he and the Crimson Tide might be overlooking Arkansas, a team that got bushwhacked by South Carolina last weekend 52-7. In typical Sabanesque style, he denied such blasphemous thoughts.

"I've been asked too many times already about last year's game, last
week's game. Our game, their game; doesn't have anything to do with this
game," Saban said during his Wednesday post-practice press conference.
"Does not have any effect on the outcome of this game. It's going
to be about how we play when we play on Saturday. That's what our
players need to understand."

Saban also had this to say about facing Arkansas.

"If you don't do a
really good job of executing offensively, they're going to take
advantage of it," Saban said. "We're concerned about the identity and the improvement
that our team makes and we certainly respect every opponent that we
play and certainly have a lot of respect for Arkansas, because we've had
a lot of really tough games."

Saban's no.1 acolyte, Alabama starting quarterback A.J. McCarron, shared a similar worldview when it comes to facing the Razorbacks.

"I can’t tell you the
score of the Kentucky game," he said. "I can’t remember how high we’re supposed to
count in the locker room, the points we scored, for our fight song. I
definitely don’t remember scores from all the games. It’s never about them.
It’s never about the opponent we’re facing.

"Coach Saban likes to say they are
faceless, and they are. It’s about us and about what we do and how we take
everything on the field. It doesn’t matter who we play. We’re trying to play
the way we’re capable of playing."

Saban has taught McCarron well. Though he might need to be concerned about McCarron's inability to count there.